LMTisms

LMT is an interesting little thing. Stubborn, sweet, smarter than she should be, a demon, a good sister, you get it. Some of her recent gems:

• an umbrella is now called "a rainbow"
• when she's using the potty, she'll look up and tell me that "all the pee is gone!"
• she can sing a mean version of zip-pid-dee-do-dah
  
• she has a rather eclectic fashion sense; florals go quite well with stripes in a totally different tonal and color family. I fear I may be raising a "fancy Nancy" of my own!

There are moments when she just glows. My new niece was baptized a couple of weeks ago, and I was the godmother. We were at the service, and LMT was in a bright yellow sweater with daisy buttons, her hair was in all of it's blond curly glory, and she was sitting on my dad's lap. She was happy, and just being so good (not a peep most of the time). She was such a beautiful little thing, and with that munchkinesque voice of hers, she wins me over every time.

She can be a temperamental little thing; hell hath no fury like a two year old who has heard the word "no." The dramatics are Oscar worthy. At least for me though, hearing the "I love you Mommy" while holding my face in her hands are worth it all. I plan on enjoying it as long as I can.

Breathe.Repeat.

Wow, it has been nothing but non-stop moving since oh, jeez, last Tuesday?

Breathe. Repeat.

For once, I got most of all of the fun weekend type stuff (laundry, find the bottom of the kitchen sink, etc.) done. Now, let's be clear-I still have two baskets of laundry that need to be folded and deposited where they need to be. But! But! I am proud to note that there is nothing sitting in the dryer. I even managed to wash a couple of small cat beds, and the dogs' blankets (such as they are-stained towels from Husband's hotel, but they seem to like them) and get them back to the kennels.

I still feel like I've been run over by a truck. I had a bunch of things to do for work that didn't get done, and ran out of mulch for my tree ring hosta beds. But for the first time in a while, I didn't feel like a complete and utter failure, which is a plus.

I knew that this week would be a bear, and it has been, a whole day in. Back to back meetings, various fire drills, pulling me out of meetings, running from one end of the building to another (twice), being short an admin....you get the idea.

However, BabyA, who I can't remember if I have renamed her here as LMT (little miss thing), has seemed to turn the corner on the whole potty training thing. Now, granted, just by virtue of me typing this I will get home tonight to find multiple bags of "mistakes," but she had a fantastic weekend as far as that went. We moved her to a big girl bed (making her crib a daybed) and she has done amazingly well. She hates to get her Tinkerbell or Fancy Nancy undies yukky, so her stubbornness may actually work in our favor for a change. She's also taking to water in an almost fish like manner at her swimming lessons. As opposed to the ordeal that we went through with Son, she looks forward to each Saturday, and can't wait to get into the pool. Son treated it as an eight week long punishment and did his best cat impersonation each time that he got into the pool.

Speaking of the pool, I'm actually in the water with LMT. I've managed to suspend my usual strong aversion to appearing in public in anything resembling to a swimsuit, but in this case, having LMT as a very cute accessory seems to work. Yes, there is one mom who shows up in a bikini, and another that looks like she has probably run for, and may someday win, Mrs. Minnesota (but also seems to be a genuinely nice person), but it has been remarkably free of angst despite it all.

Work keeps ramping up with little to no breaks. I'm short an attorney right now, and have to start yet another round of recruiting (blech). I'm loving all the stuff that is coming across my desk and through my door, but hate the fact that I can't seem to, or ever possibly, get it all done. I like the fact that I seem to have won over at least parts of the engineering community, and that I'm getting involved on a higher business level, and that they seem to care about IP at this point. I'm worried that if I don't find a way to get it all done, I will lose all of that momentum and good will, and it will end up blowing up on me.

The part that I'm having trouble finding the balance is that I really need to see my kids. It's not necessarily coming from the place where I know that my kids need me, but more that I need them. They center me, and seem to give me fuel to keep going. One of my favorite things at night is sitting on the love seat in LMT's room and talking to her about her day, or talking about the story that we had just read. Or, if I get the chance, to sit in bed with Son and talk about his day. If I were a good little employee, I would then log in and work for another of couple of hours. I'm afraid if I keep up this type of pace, I will fall apart rather quickly. When I have done this before, I turn into that shrieking, crazy mother that sends children into therapy as adults. I hate that-it does nothing but make us all miserable. Husband is not the most positive person when it comes to handling the kids, and I don't want to pile on top of that. Son is so sensitive, and keeps so much of it inside, that I worry that I will end up with a four year old with an ulcer. Not because I was that kind of kid. Really.

I've rambled all over the place, and probably should have closed several paragraphs before now. Time to pay attention to my call...you know, what I get paid for.

Yes, I am alive

Really. I'm here.

Lately I've been having a problem being able to justify the time to write. I'm actually engaged in this job to the point that I don't usually deviate beyond reading Dear Abby every morning. Oh, and an occasional game of Bejeweled.

We are currently in the battle over what to do with Son next year. He missed the cutoff for kindergarten by four lousy days. Four. Being the daughter of a kindergarten/first grade teacher, I am very firmly of the mind that Son would do better to wait for year. I was the older kid in my class (I'm an October birthday myself) and never found it to be an issue. Same thing for my brother, another October birthday. Husband is afraid that Son will feel bad being the oldest, etc. Research that I'm aware of shows that boys tend to be behind the emotional and social curve by about a year until they catch up in the tween years. Son is certainly academically able-but is a really sensitive kid that just needs some more time to mature.

If you can't already tell, Husband is dead set against this. I'm entrenched on the other side. Like Hoffa in the endzone. I've given on so many things that are important to me-the house, the number of kids, different dreams. This decision will affect the rest of Son's life, which I don't think is an understatement. In order for him to be a happy and rounded adult, he needs not only the knowledge and education, but also the social skills and emotional security to function as an adult. Would pushing him into Kindergarten next year be fatal? Probably not-but it will make it a much harder road than it needs to be.

I love this kid so much, and I hate to see him cry. I hate that I seemed to have passed on my perfectionist gene that makes life hard. I hate that he has a father that literally had a master Sargent as a father himself, and that he simply doesn't understand, and is worried more about what people will think, rather than the beautiful kid that we have in front of us.

If anyone has any experiences to share, I'm all ears. I plan on digging in as far as I have to. I'm going to be meeting with his Montessori teacher and the kindergarten teacher at the Montessori to see what we should do. If they can keep him engaged and learning for the next year, we have nothing to lose.